Mining and large scale excavating operations may require fleets of machines to transport excavated material (e.g., dirt, rocks, gravel, etc.) from an area of excavation to a secondary location. For such an operation to be productive and profitable, the fleet of machines must be efficiently operated. One way to efficiently operate a fleet of machines is to reduce the number of operators required to operate the fleet by, for example, operating machines in a remote and/or an autonomous mode.
A system for operating a machine in an autonomous mode is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,277,784 (the '784 patent), issued to Weiss. The '784 patent discloses operating a manned harvester and an unmanned transport machine. The unmanned transport machine contains a control unit connected to a receiving unit that is configured to receive position data from the harvester. The control unit operates the transport machine based on the position data from the harvester and, for example, drives the transport machine relative to the position of the harvester.
Although the '784 patent may increase the efficiency of a fleet of machines by reducing the number of required operators, the '784 patent may not be suitable for operating multiple machines in an excavating operation. In particular, the '784 patent may be incapable of allowing a machine the ability to operate in a remote and/or an autonomous mode while performing multiple different operations with little supervision.
The disclosed system and method is directed towards improving existing systems and methods for operating machines.